


Bellevue Hospital, New York, 1985

by benzedrine_calmstheitch



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 1980s, Death, Gen, HIV/AIDS Crisis, Missing Scene, New York City, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), POV Second Person, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 20:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20070022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benzedrine_calmstheitch/pseuds/benzedrine_calmstheitch
Summary: You can’t imagine it will be long now. Not much longer before they stop playing games with these people, they stop making their lives a misery. And you know it’s the Plan, you know it’s supposed to happen, but for how much longer? How much more must they bear? You recall all you have borne witness to before, and are afraid of the answer.





	Bellevue Hospital, New York, 1985

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is the first fic I've ever written, and fair warning: it's pretty dang sad. 
> 
> Please LMK if you have any suggestions about how to tag, format, etc.

You stand outside the door for just a moment, taking in your reflection in the glass, making sure you engage every sense of your assigned body fully, making sure you are ready, as ready as you can be, to comfort, to console, to stand witness.

You take one more clear breath. You step inside.

The smell is immediate and overwhelming. You force yourself to stay with it, fight against your body gagging and recoiling, push the instinct to dampen the sense, to make it go away. Be here, be present, do not let this go idly by. You inhale the shit and the piss and the vomit and the rot, pungent under the thin veneer of rubbing alcohol and industrial soap. This place is clean, but the odor lingers. These men waste away, and their bodies expel the illness eating at them however they can, through uncontrolled bowels and uneasy stomachs, through the skin on their faces and the gums in their mouths. And those other people, those tireless people who remain healthy, they stand by and scrub and clean and disinfect, over and over, trying in vain to exorcise the scent of these dying bodies, desperate to allow those still in denial about how this will end for them to remain so for a little while longer, and maybe if they can hold on to their hope that little bit more it will be enough, maybe it will be long enough for someone important to care and do something.

You always were an optimist when it came to humanity. You don’t dare ask a higher power to step in. You’re certain they’re to blame, after all. One more shot from the other side crossing the bow. 

You stand inside every door and look. You meet the gaze of every sunken eye, the ones who still have the strength to look back, that is. And for those men whose eyes remain closed, you let your body’s eyes linger on their faces, the gaunt waxy cheeks and open sores and cracked lips and greasy hair. You watch their chests, shaking as they rise, collapsing as they fall with every breath, never sure if the next will come. You look at their hands, the pitted fingernails, the black bruises that don’t heal. Take it all in. Do not look away. Bear witness to this. Do not let these men go without notice. You can at least do that. It’s all you can do, but you can do that.

You can’t imagine it will be long now. Not much longer before they stop playing games with these people, they stop making their lives a misery. And you know it’s the Plan, you know it’s supposed to happen, but for how much longer? How much more must they bear? You recall all you have borne witness to before, and are afraid of the answer.

With every chest hitching, you listen to the ragged inhale. The relieved exhale. The body giving up for just a moment, before fighting for the next breath. You hear the monotonous beeping, usually steady but not always, sometimes erratic, but sometimes, and this is worst of all, the beeps slow, they crawl, and the giving up of the exhale lasts longer before the fight of the inhale, and you want to tune out, you don’t have to do this, you can control this, but you don’t, you won’t. You stay, and you listen to the space between the sounds. And sometimes there’s a lover, a friend, on rare but beautiful occasions an actual relative, holding his hand and crying, and you hear as their thumb brushes over his knuckles, as they choke back their sobs, as they whisper “rest now,” as they dare to press a kiss to his sweaty forehead. But often, far too often, there’s no one making any other sound to fill in the space. It’s just him, and his fighting breaths, and his slowing beeps.

You’re certain this is Hell. 

When it’s just him and his empty spaces, you take it upon yourself. You sit on the edge of the bed, close enough to place gentle pressure against his thigh with your hip, enough for him to feel your warmth (you make sure you are warm), and you pick up his hand. You feel the skin thin as paper, his weak bird bones beneath, a faint pulse at his wrist, and his fingertips are cold, so cold, so you warm them too. With your other hand you reach up to his forehead, you brush his damp hair back, you cradle his sallow cheek. You honestly don’t know if he can feel this, if he knows you’re here, but you assume he does, and you tell him not to be afraid, that he is Loved, that he is just having a dream of whatever it is he likes best, and you tell him to enjoy it, there’s no rush to wake up. You feel the pain in every corner of his body, and you ask him to let go of it, you tell him you’ll bear it for him. And eventually he does just that, and the breaths stop fighting and the beeps stop coming, and you don’t know if it helped at all, but you may have, and that’s all you know to do and you hope it’s enough, so you take your hands away and leave the room.

You feel sick.

The bile is rising and the back of your throat tastes sour and metallic, and you make your body experience this, too. You find the toilets and rush into a stall. Your stomach heaves, and the slick hot burn cascades over your tongue as you vomit. There. The taste lingers, tingling on your tongue, and you know you could be rid of it, but you refuse to back away from this, so you tear off a square of toilet tissue and wipe your mouth, you throw it in with your sick and flush the toilet, and you let your body’s breaths settle as you start to leave the stall. But as your breaths calm, you hear someone else’s, and they’re thick and wet, full of snot and tears and outrage. This you can do, you can console, you can comfort. You exit the stall and scan the sinks, looking for the body running riot with such pain.

It’s him.

It’s been nearly twenty years since you’ve seen him, but you’ve gone far longer, and you would know that body across all of time. His dark red hair is a messy mohawk now, and his penchant for all black these days takes the form of a leather jacket, scuffed jeans, heavy-soled boots. You look in the mirror for his dark glasses, wanting to catalog every change in his appearance since you’ve last seen him, but you immediately recognize how superficial, how ridiculous, how petty that desire is (consider where you are, consider what you’re doing here), so you start to look away, but you can’t. Because he’s not wearing the glasses.

It’s been so long since you’ve seen him without them. Centuries. You were sure you never would again. Certainly never in public. Certainly never like this.

His yellow eyes are red-rimmed and wet. He must know you’re right there, he’s looking right at you, but he doesn’t stop his body’s heaving breaths, makes no move to wipe away the tears, just stares at you and carries on. And suddenly, you’re furious.

“Crowley.”

He doesn’t answer. 

“Crowley!”

He stares. His chest heaves, hitches.

“What are you doing here?” You try not to yell. You’re a warrior, you remember fighting, you don’t want to be that but it’s part of you, and he’s a demon, after all this time he is still that, and he is here to what, to gloat over his handiwork?

“ **Answer me!** ” You give in to temptation. You yell.

He flinches. That did it. “Well, same as you I expect, Angel. Surveying the damage done by those Upstairs.”

You thought you were furious before, but for the first time in nearly six thousand years you almost wish you still had your flaming sword. You are beyond words. So you stare. You make him see it. You make him explain.

To his credit, he turns to face you and he looks. He doesn’t back away, but he watches your face, and his tears start anew. “Angel, I swear to whomever you want me to, I didn’t do this. We didn’t do this. I promise. I thought it was your side.”

“My side? Look around, Crowley! These men are dying, they are being torn apart, all because they love, and the rest of the world is letting it happen, letting these men be destroyed by their love and telling them they deserve it, and you honestly think this is my side?”

“Well, yes.” He doesn’t even blink. “Don’t you remember the ark? Say what you want about love. When your side sees humans acting unbecoming, they are awfully quick with the repercussions.”

“Unbecoming?”

“You know exactly what I mean, Angel.”

You do, so you say nothing. 

He sighs. He throws you a bone. “With the ark, and then later with the carpenter, you knew, yes? They told you it was coming, it was part of the Plan?”

You nod.

“But they didn’t tell you about this?”

You shake your head, but you can still taste the vomit on your tongue so you don’t accept this gift without one last attempt at a fight. “What about your side, then? Have they ever told you about their plans before? What makes you so sure this wasn’t you?”

“I  _ am _ their plans. They’re much more hands-off than you lot Upstairs. Mostly I’ve just been taking credit for what the humans come up with themselves. You remember Paris.”

You do remember Paris, how the people shoved each other under a dull blade and dropped it, how they screamed and bled and wept, and how he showed up not for them, he had nothing to do with them, he was there for you, and you know he’s right. When you first saw him in the mirror you wanted so badly to blame him, but that rush of anger has faded and now your bones feel heavy and your eyes scratchy. You realize your body is exhausted. “I still don’t think it’s my side. We don’t punish humans for loving each other. Only humans do that.”

“I know, Angel. I know.” You don’t know if he believes you, but you realize that he isn’t interested in assigning fault right now, and you are grateful for that. He looks over the whole of you, takes in every detail. He bears witness to you. “Have you been doing the thing?”

“What thing?”

“The thing you do. With your body. And the senses.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Of course you do. You just didn’t know he knew about it. You’ve done it before, of course. In Germany and Poland, forty-some years ago. In Ireland, a hundred years before that. Hundreds, maybe thousands of times more, all over the world, all across time. And he has known apparently, has watched you tap in to every level of humanity you have in order to be fully present, to refuse to abandon them when they were suffering, but to fully experience it with them. You don’t know how to explain it, so you deflect, but then –

“Me too. That’s why I came here. Since you asked. I came to do the thing you do. See if it helped.”

“Did it?”

“Me or them?”

“Either. Both.”

He sighs again. His body must be tired, too, you realize. “I don’t know, Angel. I really don’t.”

He heads to the door, stops, pulls black aviator glasses out of a pocket, and turns to you. “Can I give you a lift? Take you to lunch?”

You step toward him. He opens the door for you. You meet his eyes one more time. “Thank you, Crowley, but I’m afraid I’ve lost my appetite.” You walk past him and out the door before you have to see him put the glasses on.

**Author's Note:**

> Come chat with me on [the Tumbles](https://benzedrine-calmstheitch.tumblr.com), if you like.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
